Lessons of a failed intervention

[Tiki Tam Tam]

In this case, the mistake is to think that Israel can destroy Hezbollah or eliminate it as a political and military entity. To claim otherwise plays into the hands of Hezbollah, Syria, and Iran, which want to define their victory as Hezbollah’s survival.

Defining victory as merely survival is a pattern often typical of Arab (and Iranian) politics. It is simultaneously disastrous and sensible. It is disastrous because it courts defeat by attacking superior forces: the 1967 Six Day War, Saddam Hussein’s challenge to the United States and his attack on Iran, Yasser Arafat’s fighting an endless battle in which he was always defeated, and so on. The Arab side is left with tremendous losses in casualties and material, as is once again happening with Lebanon and the Palestinians.

But what is to a large extent a defeat in practical and military terms also can be considered a political victory. The Arabs never “lose” because they never surrender. Thus they do not formally give up anything. The leaders that brought on failure and the groups that did not triumph become heroes for being able to claim that they courageously fought the enemy without being crushed. The important points for them are that they gained revenge by inflicting damage, showed that they were real men, did not buckle under and survived.

Such a pattern is a formula for endless conflict and endless defeat. Yet defeats do not force new attitudes, policies or leaders. The pragmatic “lesson” remains unlearnt because those who take this view perceive a different lesson.

This is the reason why the conflict will continue.

The intervention will not yield the result desired, nor will the Hizb be defeated!

The cycle will continue and the world will again bumble its way through the next conflict and wait the one that will follow after a period of time.

 

[Spring Onion]

This is the reason why the conflict will continue.

The intervention will not yield the result desired, nor will the Hizb be defeated!

The cycle will continue and the world will again bumble its way through the next conflict and wait the one that will follow after a period of time.

it means sir the forces, the money and the weapons be allowed to play arround to keep the world busy

 

[Sid]

They're not playing around Jana. They're just part of a short-sighted strategy, poor planning and sheer arrogance. Have a look at the following article.

Knife in the back —Uri Avnery

After the war, the enthusiasm will simmer down and the Israeli army will start investigating its failures. Everybody will claim that he or she was against the war from the first day on. Then the Day of Judgment will come. The conclusion that presents itself is: kick out Olmert, send Peretz packing and sack Halutz

The day after the war will be the Day of the Long Knives.

Everybody will blame everybody else. The politicians will blame each other. The generals will blame each other. The politicians will blame the generals. And, most of all, the generals will blame the politicians.

Always, in every country and after every war, when the generals fail, the “knife in the back” legend raises its head. If only the politicians had not stopped the army just when it was on the point of achieving a glorious, crushing, historic victory. That’s what happened in Germany after World War I, when the legend gave birth to the Nazi movement. That’s what happened in America after Vietnam.

The truth is that not one single military target has been achieved. The army that took just six days to rout three big Arab armies in 1967 has not succeeded in overcoming a small “terrorist organisation”.

Military spokesmen are claiming that we have succeeded in killing 200 (or 300, or 400, who is counting?) of the 1,000 fighters of Hezbollah. The assertion that the entire Hezbollah consisted of 1,000 fighters speaks for itself.

President Bush is said to be frustrated. The Israeli army has not “delivered the goods”. Bush sent it into war believing that it would “finish the job” in a few days. It was supposed to eliminate Hezbollah, turn Lebanon over to the US stooges, weaken Iran and perhaps also open the way to “regime change” in Syria. No wonder he is angry.

Ehud Olmert is even more furious. He went to war with a light heart because the Air Force generals promised to destroy Hezbollah within a few days. Now he is stuck in the mud, and no victory in sight.

At the termination of the fighting — possibly even before that — the War of the Generals will start. The commanders of the land army already blame the power-intoxicated Air Force, who promised victory all by themselves. To bomb, bomb and bomb, destroy roads, bridges, residential quarters and villages, and — finito! The Air Force generals will blame the land forces, especially Northern Command. Their spokesmen already declare that it is full of inept officers.

The accusations are all right. This war is plastered with military failures — in the air and on land and the sea.

They are rooted in the terrible arrogance that has become our national character, is even more typical of the army and reaches its climax in the Air Force. For years we have told each other and convinced the world that we have the most-most-most army in the world that in 1967 won an astounding victory in six days. As a result, when this time the army did not win a huge victory in six days, everybody was astounded. Why, what happened?

The other side of the coin of arrogance is the profound contempt for Arabs. Now our soldiers are learning the hard way that the “terrorists” are highly motivated, tough fighters, not junkies dreaming of “their” virgins in paradise.

But beyond arrogance and contempt for the opponent, there is a basic military problem: it is just impossible to win a war against guerrillas. After our 18-year stay in Lebanon we drew the unavoidable conclusion and got out. True, without an agreement with the other side. But we did get out.

God knows what gave today’s generals the unfounded self-confidence that they would win where their predecessors failed.

And even the best army in the world cannot win a war that has no clear aims. Clausewitz pronounced that “war is nothing more than the continuation of politics by other means”. Olmert and Peretz have turned this inside out: “War is nothing more than the continuation of the lack of policy by other means.” Therefore, the main blame will be laid at their feet. They succumbed to the temptation and dragged the state into a war. The decision was hasty, unconsidered and reckless.

As Nehemia Strassler wrote in Haaretz: They could have stopped after two or three days, when all the world agreed that Hezbollah’s provocation justified an Israeli response, when nobody was yet doubting the capability of the Israeli army. The operation would have looked sensible, sober and proportional.

But Olmert and Peretz could not stop. As greenhorns in matters of war, they did not know that the boasts of the generals cannot be relied on, that even the best military plans are not worth the paper on which they are written, that in war the unexpected must be expected, that nothing is more temporary then the glory of war. They were intoxicated by the war’s popularity, egged on by a herd of fawning journalists, driven out of their minds by their own glory as war leaders.

Like two village idiots, to the sound of drums and bugles, they set off at the head of their March of Folly.

It is reasonable to assume that they will pay the price after the war.

What will come out of this mess?

No one talks anymore about eliminating Hezbollah or disarming it and destroying all the rockets.

At the start of the war, the government furiously rejected the idea of deploying an international force of any kind along the border. The army believed that such a force would not protect Israel, but only restrict its freedom of action. Now, suddenly, the deployment of this force has become the main aim of the campaign. The army is continuing the operation solely in order to “prepare the ground for the international force”, and Olmert declares that he will go on fighting until it appears on the ground.

That is, of course, a sorry alibi, a ladder for getting down from the high tree. The international force can be deployed only in agreement with Hezbollah. No country will send its soldiers to a place where they would have to fight the locals. And the local Shiites will return to their villages — including the underground Hezbollah fighters.

The force will also be totally dependent on the agreement of Hezbollah. If a bomb explodes under a bus full of French soldiers, a cry will go up in Paris: bring our sons home. That is what happened when the US Marines were bombed in Beirut. The Germans certainly will not send troops where they would be obliged to shoot at Israelis.

And nothing will prevent Hezbollah from launching rockets over the heads of the international force. What will the international force do then? Conquer all the area up to Beirut? How will Israel respond?

Olmert wants the force to control the Lebanese-Syrian border. That, too, is illusory. Anybody who wants to smuggle weapons will stay away from the main roads controlled by the international soldiers. He will find hundreds of places along the border to do this. With the proper bribe, one can do anything.

Therefore, after the war, we will stand more or less in the same place we were before we started this sorry adventure, before the killing of almost a thousand Lebanese and Israelis and before the eviction from their homes of more than a million Israelis and Lebanese.

After the war, the enthusiasm will simmer down and the army will start investigating its failures. Everybody will claim that he or she was against the war from the first day on. Then the Day of Judgment will come.

The conclusion that presents itself is: kick out Olmert, send Peretz packing and sack Halutz.

And embark on a new course, the only one that will solve the problem: negotiations and peace with the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Syrians. And: with Hamas and Hezbollah.

It’s only with one’s enemies that one makes peace.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli peace activist who has advocated the setting up of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. He served three terms in the Israeli parliament (Knesset), and is the founder of Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc)

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\08\08\story_8-8-2006_pg3_2

Very thought provoking and absorbing piece by Mr Avnery. He knows how things go and come around; and I believe it just might end up as he expects things to unfold.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

The article is impressive.

It would have impacted if it were less flippant in style.

Before the Gulf War there were serious exponents who has advocated that the air would win the war. However, the Gulf War proved them wrong since boots on the ground alone can claim there is victory. It is another matter that the Americans did not cater or understand insurgency and hence the imbroglio in Iraq.

Therefore, given the Gulf War experiences, I am sure the IsAF generals would not have told their politicians that they would hand over Lebanon on the platter.

Even the contention that Uri mention of the rise of Nazidom is flawed. In fact, it is ridiculous. He feels that there will be very few alive to know the reasons and so he thinks he can bullshit his way.

It appears Israel indeed has a plan unlike what the writer is advocating. In fact, he maybe a "mole" who is trying to obfuscate. Since the Israeli aim is not quite comprehensible upfront, the plan is possibly to devastate and destroy Lebanese civil infrastructure so that the Lebanese spend more than a decade to reconstruct and hence not have time to think about Israel and at the same time have an international force as a buffer so that the Hizbollah cannot attack and any attacks would be a body blow to the UN. And that would get the world against the Hizb, who would lose all the moral standing they might have.

In fact, the plan and the strategy is brilliant!

Brilliant, ingenuous and mostly, very devious!

 

[Sid]

It appears Israel indeed has a plan unlike what the writer is advocating. In fact, he maybe a "mole" who is trying to obfuscate. Since the Israeli aim is not quite comprehensible upfront, the plan is possibly to devastate and destroy Lebanese civil infrastructure so that the Lebanese spend more than a decade to reconstruct and hence not have time to think about Israel and at the same time have an international force as a buffer so that the Hizbollah cannot attack and any attacks would be a body blow to the UN. And that would get the world against the Hizb, who would lose all the moral standing they might have.

In fact, the plan and the strategy is brilliant!

Brilliant, ingenuous and mostly, very devious!

Israeli aim not comprehensible? What more do people need to see to comprehend what the plan is? Its the destruction of Lebanese civil society in every possible way. Bomb their infrastructure, push them back to antiquity, hoping that the Lebanese people would start pointing fingers at Hezbollah for their ills but Israel forgot that Hezbollah is not some renegade movement but a political force that was 'elected' by Lebanese people and its members sit in the Lebanese parliament.

International force? What force? Do you imagine any country sending a force to Israel without a ceasefire in place as the first step? Absolutely not. And that ceasefire is the 'very' thing that Hezbollah would claim as victory which is why Israel has been clamoring that they wont stop the onslaught till the international force gets there. Thats an unrealistic proposition since they know no third country wants its soldiers being rained up on by Katyushas. An international force can only be deployed when there is agreement by both sides (Israel and Hezbollah) to cease hostilities.

Body blow to the UN turning world against Hezbollah? I'm afraid you forget once again that Hezbollah has become the latest 'hero' of the Arab masses because it is fighting the Israeli aggression. And the world simply cannot turn against Hezbollah due to the fact that the world you live in comprises of those Arab masses. Unless you talk of a world comprising mainly of Israel and its buddies.

So, the plan and strategy is not brilliant at all, contrary to what you think.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

The Arab masses are the real reason why all the problems take place. They are disorganised, full of factions, rift with internecine sectarianism, petty politics and wholly goalless. And, importantly, they can be bought over.

These factions within their plural polity, on their own take unilateral action which plunges the nation in a crisis as is the case of the Lebanese govt not being in charge of the issue that precipitated this crisis and instead it was a unilateral Hizbollah action. Same is the case in Palestine. While the the President wants to steer one path, the PM wants to steer another. And the remainder Arab countries just stand as bystander bleating pious platitudes instead of getting the factions united under a singular authority. Now, if that is beyond them, then let the situation take its own course instead of pretending to show solidarity and messing things further.

The resultant Arab conscience is only talk and nothing else they can or wish to do since everytime they have united against Israel, they have had to beat a hasty retreat.

On the other hand, Israelis appear behind their govt.

The destruction of Lebanese infrastructure now does indicate that the aim was to push the clock back for the Lebanese, but then it also has its military value i.e. interdiction, wherein movement to the front is impeded with the highways, communication, road and bridges blown up.

In sum total, a very methodical manner of an offensive with political overtones has been observed. And that plan gone through with deliberated resolve.

That done, what does the future hold for Israel and Lebanon?

With the ceasefire and the international force entering, the Hizbollah will be technically neutralised. I wonder if it will actually get neutralised. Therefore, Israel would have achieved the political aim desired. A formidable (hopefully!) buffer in place as against the moribund and decapitated observers and token presence strung along the border as of earlier days.

Therefore, the Israelis will get what they wanted and so the plan is brilliant, even if in a Machiavellian way! Of course, you are entitled to your opinion and one cannot grudge that.

What was the aim of the Hizbollah? Can anyone elucidate?

Ofcourse, Hizbollah is a political force. But are they a private army, not answerable to the elected and democratically instituted Lebanese govt?

 

[Sid]

History repeats with a vengeance


In the first of a two-part series, he looks at how this round of violence compares with - and was born of - previous conflicts.


When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the initial pretext - reflected in the codename given to the operation, Peace for Galilee - was to push PLO guns about 40km (25 miles) back from the border, beyond range of northern Israel.


The goal sounds familiar today, as Hezbollah rockets hail down on Israel's northern cities.


But the real agenda of then-Defence Minister Ariel Sharon in 1982 swiftly became clear, as Israeli forces raced to Beirut and besieged an Arab capital for the first time.


It was far more ambitious: to decapitate the Palestinian movement by destroying the PLO, to eject Syrian troops from Lebanon, and install a friendly government in Beirut which would make peace with Israel.


The Israelis failed to destroy the PLO, but succeeded in squeezing it out. Yasser Arafat and his fighters were obliged to evacuate on ships and be taken off to Tunis.


But even that was a pyrrhic victory. Yasser Arafat ended up returning to his homeland and died as President of the Palestinian Authority.


Iran and Syria


Israel's other goals were foiled by a banding together of its strategic regional foes - Syria and Iran.


In 1982, Lebanon's majority Shia community - fed up with paying the price for Palestinian guerrilla adventures against Israel - initially welcomed the Israeli intervention.


But its increasing resentment against the continuing Israeli occupation provided fertile ground for Iran and Syria to encourage the formation of a vehicle that was to prove both deadly and effective in driving the Israelis out: Hezbollah, which did not exist before the invasion.


Using suicide bomb attacks and other tactics, Hezbollah joined other Syrian-backed groups in expelling the Multi-National Force (MNF), which had intervened to take over from the Israelis in the Beirut area.


It is a sobering thought for any country considering joining the proposed international force for the south Lebanon border zone.


The MNF, led by the US and including French, Italian and British contingents, pulled out in 1983 when they found themselves embroiled in a militia war and taking casualties for no clear purpose.


It took 17 bloody years and hundreds of casualties for the Israelis, who had fallen back on a broad border security zone, run by their local proxies the South Lebanon Army (SLA), to draw the same conclusion.


In 2000 they pulled out, and the SLA collapsed literally overnight. Hezbollah moved forward into the border zone unopposed.


Now, following Hezbollah's massively provocative cross-border raid on 12 July in which eight Israeli soldiers were killed and two captured, history is repeating itself - but with many differences.


Mission impossible?


Israel has launched a stunningly violent attack on Lebanon with flexible but wide-ranging political ambitions, which are partly tied up with the perception that it is fighting part of its American partner's "war on terror".


It would like to destroy Hezbollah and its leadership, or at a minimum, to see it disarmed and pushed beyond missile range of Israel, with either the Lebanese Army or some kind of international "enforcement" troops taking its place in the border zone.


But destroying Hezbollah is not possible. It is deeply rooted in Lebanon's biggest community. In alliance with the more moderate Shia movement Amal, it dominates Shia politics.


However hard the Israelis press, Hezbollah cannot be packed onto ships and sent off to Tunis like the PLO.


By inflicting massive damage on Lebanese civilians and the country's infrastructure, the Israelis apparently intended to exert pressure on the Beirut government to curb Hezbollah.


But that cannot work either. Hezbollah's militia is powerful, well-armed and highly motivated - as the Israelis have found to their cost, both now and before they left Lebanon in 2000.


Having been reconstructed under Syrian auspices before Syria's troop withdrawal last year, the Lebanese Army has many Shia in its ranks.


If it were to be sent against Hezbollah it would almost certainly fall to pieces on sectarian lines, as happened in the 1970s and 80s, raising the prospect of a civil war pitting the Shia against the rest.


US 'contradiction'


In contrast to many previous bouts of violence, there has been an extraordinary lack of US restraint on the Israelis, who have this time pursued a course more violent than anything they have unleashed on Lebanon before.


Washington has said nothing as Israeli jets have blasted targets from Beirut international airport to roads, bridges, factories, petrol stations and other non-military targets all over Lebanon, in addition to strikes on civilian areas and vehicles which have taken a heavy toll of life.


The US is caught in a contradiction here. It is committed to the elected, mainly anti-Syrian government headed by Fuad Siniora, who is being visibly weakened daily by the onslaught on non-Hezbollah economic and infrastructural targets.


So that is a tactic that may have already largely run its course and will be increasingly hard to pursue, with rising international concern over the militarily irrelevant damage and casualties it has inflicted, apart from the fact that it is not working.


It is akin to the tactics adopted by Israel in the Palestinian arena, urging Yasser Arafat and later Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to crack down on Hamas and other radical groups, while simultaneously destroying their ability to do so. The result was Hamas' ascendancy.


Unknown outcome


What other options does Israel have?


Despite the massive destruction inflicted on the teeming southern suburbs of Beirut, where the leadership is based, there is little sign so far that Hezbollah has been operationally affected.


Even if the Israelis succeed in their aim of killing the charismatic Hezbollah chief, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and other leaders, there is no guarantee their deaths would have a functional effect on the conflict.


His predecessor, Abbas Musawi, was killed by an Israeli helicopter strike on his car on a remote road in southern Lebanon in 1992, with no discernible benefit to Israel.


The blitzing of the south has also failed to prevent Hezbollah missiles and rockets raining down on Israel's own civilian population. Hezbollah leaders say they have only used a fraction of their stocks.


In his latest televised message, Hassan Nasrallah has warned that the strikes would be carried beyond Haifa, and then deeper still. All his warnings so far, have been carried out.


With their air strikes apparently unable to silence the missiles, the Israelis resorted to ground incursions, despite a national consensus that Lebanon is a dangerous swamp in which to become mired.


That truism was immediately validated by the results of the incursion so far.


In the battle for the small border village of Maroun al-Ras, the Israelis conceded at least seven of their soldiers were killed. Pushing on to the regional town of Bint Jbeil, they lost even more to carefully-planned Hezbollah ambushes and counterattacks, despite the massive firepower thrown in to support their ground forces.


Contd...

 

[Sid]

Border control?


Israeli leaders talk of establishing some kind of security belt along the Lebanese side of the border, an idea tried in many permutations with painful results from the invasion of the south in 1978 until the final withdrawal in 2000.


Unless there is a very significant degradation of Hezbollah's capabilities - at the current rate of progress in the Maroun al-Ras/Bint Jbeil area - it would take Israel many weeks and many scores of military casualties to secure a contiguous strip of any depth along the entire border, far less the entire area up to the Litani River which seems to be the plan.


And if they did, what then?


Israeli officials have suggested they would hand the strip over to a robust international force, with "an enforcement role", as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert put it.


Or to the Lebanese Army, if it can be sent down.


A peacekeeping force with no peace to keep? If there is no ceasefire agreement with political underpinnings, which nation will commit troops to do Israel's fighting for it, to engage Hezbollah in a struggle which the Israelis themselves have not been able to win?


More likely, the Israelis would themselves be left in control of that border strip.


Any fixed presence would clearly act as a magnet for more attacks by Hezbollah and perhaps other Lebanese and Palestinian groups, rallying against a new occupation of Lebanese soil that would further bolster Hezbollah's raison d'etre as a resistance movement.


History repeating itself, again.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5222154.stm


That should explain a few things quite well. Israel will find it impossible to eliminate Hezbollah. Its not the same as was the case with PLO.

 

[TexasJohn]

I'll stick my neck out and be a "told you so":

1. Israel will not win this war of eliminating Hizbola - heck, they are barely winning the battles!!

2. Pounding civilians as " collective punishment" is a stupid strategy. It will have the opposite effect on the hapless population, who will now turn against you. Now they will now support Hizbolla even more. Israel has to learn that they have not been able to "bomb their way to security" since 1947.

3. The only real answer is to address the real grievances of the Palestenians. And please do it sincerely. You cannot wish your neighbors away! Why can't we all just get along??

 

[parihaka]

Eliminating Hizbollah is as easy as eliminating any other waring agency: you have to kill it at source, namely Syria & Iran.
Clearly that is not on the cards for Israel so as Salim says, "an international force as a buffer so that the Hizbollah cannot attack and any attacks would be a body blow to the UN."
the key here is the UN. For the last 5 years they have looked the other way as hizbollah has been built into a well equiped fighting force, infact the UN has condoned and by permitting, aided it.
Kofi may rant as much as he likes against Israel but this entire slaughterous farce lies squarely at the UN's feet. The actions of Hizbollah are a given, as are the actions of the Israelis. If the UN fails again here, it will be their end as a meaningful international "peacekeeper".


Interesting Israeli Officer quote of the week
"We prepared to fight insurgents: instead we ended up fighting a regular Iranian Army division"

 

[parihaka]

Why can't we all just get along??

I'm hoping you said that tounge in cheek

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

International politics is a funny animal.

If they get along with each other, then it is dead as a dodo.

It just doesn't like that idea it appears!

It reminds me of the nursery rhyme - Row, Row, Row your boat, gently down the stream.........

For the average international citizen life is turning out to be not a dream, but a nightmare!

But then, I reckon, that is the reality of existence.

 

[TexasJohn]

I'm hoping you said that tounge in cheek

OK, it's a fantasy.

India and Pakistan quit fighting over Kashmir, and instead each country must develop the part of Kashmir they occupy. Both countries are guilty of neglecting their areas of control.

After both countries do their " sell jobs", let's see who they choose. If they want to be an independant "Switzerland" what's wrong with that?

The countryside sure looks like the Alps, and the Swiss have survived 2 World Wars followed by the cold war!

After all this violence on their soil, don't they deserve some piece and quiet?

 

[sparten]

Not a bad idea. But I really doubt the Indians will agree to it. Anyway. A few days in Kashmir, and you will say, "Switzerland? Whats that?".

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Kashmir is more equipped than Switzerland and I am not talking about the tourism aspects alone!

I see no solution.

The thaw should extend to all over India and Pakistan and once there is free movement, who cares which part is where?

For all I know, I will buy a house in Lahore so that I can take on Asim without the use of a computer and a broadband!

Maybe I will give Jana a Valentine as an admirer of her posts and meet the Air Marshal at his Officers Mess and have a soft drink and hand over my manuscirpt of short stories of the funny side of the IA that I experienced for proof reading since he is so keen on my spellings as a point of Moderator's wrath and so neatly avoiding the real reason for getting wild!